


Firebutt and the Burned Back

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, NoSelfPresevation!Stiles, hero!Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:06:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it is Stiles' turn to creep into Derek's window for a change. Oh, and, wild pyromancer appears. Yay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firebutt and the Burned Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely AU like, I don't even know where to situate this along the series. Just enjoy it, dammit.

Stiles registers so many shouts ordering him to _duck!_ And _take cover!_ that he rolls his eyes before doing just what they ordered him to do. _Jesus, focus on yourselves_ , he manages to think alongside _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_ , heart beating wildly in his chest as a spinning ball of fire soars over his head and hits a mound of dirt a few feet behind them.

Earth rains down on them, and Stiles chokes on the onslaught of heat and smoke. He does a rolling sort of crawl towards the nearest tree and quickly situates himself behind it, trying to gain composure back.

He breathes fast, bracing himself against the tree trunk. His eyes dart everywhere for any sign of the pack. _Shit, we’re spread out._

A map of everyone’s positions quickly forms in his head. He’s pretty sure that Jackson threw his hands up at the very last second and took a fireball directly, blasting him towards the bushes around the bend. Boyd had run after him. Isaac and Scott had leaped near simultaneously towards the cover of the shrubs. Derek had _jumped so high_ and was somewhere above them in the canopy.

Allison, who was tackled to the ground by Erica, had been across from him half a minute before, bow drawn and arrow notched—they had been told to be vigilant by Derek, who had been, until fifteen seconds ago, engaging Stiles in a shouting match, with phrases like _‘you’re supposed to be back at the house!’_ and _‘you obviously have zero self-preservation’_ being thrown at Stiles face, and Stiles retorting, with quiet rage, _‘look, I’m the only one who knows what we’re dealing with’_ and _‘dude, let me in on this, you’re being a douche’._

Stiles takes a gutsy lungful of air before looking around the tree. He finds Erica and Allison, huddled on the leafy ground and muttering frantically to each other. For a second he wishes for Derek to be by his side, the two of them planning their next move, but he then shakes his head at how stupid that sounds. The way their pack works during a crisis is Derek barking out orders at everyone, Stiles doing the complete opposite of what he says, and the two plans somehow meeting halfway and turning out to be the best course of action.

Going after the whatever it is was Stiles’ idea. He pitched it in during the latest pack meeting, to mixed reception.

Jackson called him an idiot right away, which something coming from Jackson didn’t faze Stiles one bit. Scott was all for it, and Stiles gave him a best friends thumbs up and a _‘thanks dude’_. Lydia didn’t outright shoot him down, and shot Jackson a quelling look. Erica was more focused on her nails and Boyd was quiet. Isaac seemed to be transfixed on Scott and Allison on the recliner.

Derek scowled at him—well, not really, more like, directed his permanently scowling face at him—and demanded an explanation, with that authoritative grunting voice he usually employs when Stiles is cooking up potentially destructive plans.

Stiles bristled and met Derek with a determined look. “I am about 86% sure it’s a magic wielding person i.e. some sort of pyromancer. Or something.”

“Pyromancer.” Derek’s face looked incredulously confused for a moment, and then his thick eyebrows furrowed. “What makes you so sure?”

Stiles shrugged. “I’m not, like, really sure. But I took a peek at Dad’s police reports. Eyewitness accounts all point to the multiple cases of burned down buildings being caused by a person, a.k.a. arson. It’s not something fire-breathing like a robot or a demon goat. It's walking on two legs. It burns stuff with a purpose. Pyromancer.”

Lydia made a show of flipping her hair around her shoulder. “If that’s the case, then give me a map. If he’s thinking consciously, then he must be subconsciously following a pattern.”

Stiles had then plotted all of the locations of the fires onto the map that Derek provided, and Lydia used trigonometry and geometry and all sorts of -metries and mathematics that Stiles couldn’t grasp altogether as quickly as Lydia did. They ended up with a very small patch of forest in the middle of Beacon Hills as a reference area for their search.

“Have I told you that you’re the queen of all things amazeballs?” Stiles gushed, staring at the map as if they’d discovered Atlantis. Lydia winked at him, and Jackson snarled at Stiles, prompting the teen to hold his hands up in defense.

Derek growled low in his throat, glaring at Stiles, but said nothing. Lydia shot him a knowing look and a smirk.

Derek’s plan had been to patrol the perimeter and train his betas in quick response tactics, should the culprit sprout from the darkness and decide to set things on fire again. Stiles didn’t like that they had to wait for the crime to happen again before they could spring on the person. He and his dad and the rest of Beacon Hills didn’t need any more establishments ravaged to the ground, thank you very much.

So with some persuasion, verbal abuse, and an annoying string of _‘but duuude’_ s, Derek relented, on the condition that the humans stay inside the Hale house until the pursuit was over with. Lydia had no problems with that, except for the uninviting décor of the derelict house, and Allison decided to be the armed one among the three, but Stiles bristled once again, and put a foot down when Derek made to leave.

“ _Hey_ , now see here, Bruce Wayne, I’m not gonna let you leave me out of this just because I don’t have werewolf venom or whatever it is flowing through your veins—“ Stiles started, striding forward, his hands already threatening to flail everywhere, when Derek swiftly turned back and towered over him in two large strides.

His glare bore down on Stiles like a boulder. “No humans near the pyromancer,” he repeated, in a low, menacing tone. Stiles swallowed, but glared back at the Alpha with defiance.

“Stop being a hero. Just because I’m a bit more squishy than your Photoshop-made-real-life bodies doesn’t mean I can’t dish it out and fight back,” Stiles said angrily. Derek’s scowl deepened further. Stiles took note of that usual pop of a vein near Derek’s temple that indicated he was nearing his breaking point.

“Stiles, you have no idea how easily these creatures can break you,” Derek all but growled. “A lift of a finger from this thing could burn you to a crisp.”

Stiles faltered. “We … don’t know that. We don’t know how he summons fire.”

“Which is why the humans stay in the house,” Derek said with finality, eyes glowing fiercely red. Any point of argument by Stiles was stamped down by the look Derek gave him, his overactive mind failing to come up with a more solid case before Derek left.

Another fireball streaks across the open and blasts a nearby log to smithereens. Stiles tries to get his shit together to think of a plan. He suddenly wants to go back to the Hale house where Lydia is waiting, but it’s too late already—he had jumped into the foray headfirst, even dragging Allison along with him and manipulating her into thinking that the pack needed their help.

Stiles glances back at the direction of the projectiles, catching the exact moment when a fireball shoots out of the foliage and hits the ground near Allison and Erica. It's followed by another that explodes even closer to them. Stiles’ eyes frantically hone in on a figure. He might not have super werewolfy powers, but he could see well enough in the afternoon light to trace back the fireballs to their source.

He could see the creature now from his vantage point—it was indeed a human-like creature, but he looked like a demon of some sort, skin like brimstone and hair like flame. It was launching the fireballs from the palm of its hands, taking just about two or three seconds in between bursts. It looks terrifying as fuck, more terrifying than Derek. Stiles formulates a plan full of flaws in his head, and decides to execute it after a total of zero seconds mulling over it.

“Allison!” Stiles calls over his shoulder, waving his arm to catch her attention, ducking as a fireball soars past. Dust and smoke covers the field, and they’re nowhere near capturing this creature.

“Allison!” he calls again, and this time she hears him and lifts her head from the ground. He points to the general place where the wheeling flames are coming from.

“I’ll try to distract it—you take a shot at the thing!”

Allison’s face shifts into alarm, but Stiles is already out in the open, waving his arms and making as much commotion as one gangly teenager could make.

“Hey firebutt! Try cooking this spicy fajita!” he taunts, almost tripping on a completely avoidable rock. Almost _almost tripping_ , because he does trip, effectively avoiding getting hit by an incoming fireball. _Christ that was close._

“Stiles, are you _insane_?” Scott yells from the edge of a thick tree, where Isaac is keeping him in place. Both of them are wolfed out, and Stiles stupidly contemplates Isaac’s priorities when it comes to the safekeeping of friends. Like, yeah keep Scott from the inferno but let Stiles turn into piping hot fondue.

 _Three seconds to get up, brace yourself, and jump out of the way._ Stiles doesn’t know how he managed to fit that list of instructions into his train of thought in less than a second, but he manages to, and follows it to the letter, jumping out of the way when another ball of death soars out of the bushes. It catches the edge of his sleeve and singes it. Stiles cringes at the burning sensation.

“Argent! Don’t leave me out here to _roast_ and start aiming!” Stiles desperately shouts. He catches her eye, and at the next instant a fireball erupts, Allison jumps to her feet, notches an arrow and shoots, all in one fluid motion.

But Stiles trips again, and he stumbles into the fireball trajectory this time—and it’s funny because he closes his eyes, feels the incoming heat, anticipates his flesh crackling away from his bones and generally dying an excruciating death by _fireball_ —

—and after all that he doesn’t get hit, and a howl so deep erupts and splits the air in two and he opens his eyes and …

And Derek is there. Derek, with his insanely muscular Great Wall body, has his arms around him, and Stiles doesn’t fail to note the incredibly protective way the older man is doing it, his body completely curled around Stiles frail form, hugging him almost. Stiles breath is caught in his throat.

A low whine follows shortly after, and it tugs at Stiles’ chest so hard it takes a while for things to click.

“ _Idiot_ …”

Derek grits out.

“D-Derek,” he stutters, “no, why did you—“

But Derek’s face is scrunched in pain, pain that Stiles couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and he’s crumpling to the ground beside Stiles and generally just _not moving_ , and there’s the unmistakable stench of burning flesh in the air between them.

“Oh no,” Stiles deadpans, his hands hovering over Derek’s exposed and most definitely fried back, his mind so muddled with indistinct thoughts that he doesn’t know what to do with them. He starts to shake, looking from Derek’s face and neck to his shoulder blades and the swoop of his spine and _oh my God I screwed up._

“Stiles!” Scott cries, stumbling towards them. Erica runs towards the creature to make sure that Allison did in fact shoot the creature in the face, and Issac runs to Boyd and Jackson to see to if the latter is alright, but Derek seems to have taken the worst damage.

***

Stiles doesn’t know why he’s doing this, but he’s definitely done crazier things. Except those were minor crazy things, like putting laxative in Jackson’s water during practice, or trying a stick of glittery lip balm that Lydia had left lying around the house. Ok, he lied—this is the craziest thing he’s ever done that didn’t involve the supernatural, but then he wouldn’t be able to see Derek any other way.

He finally reaches the tiles of the roof, clambering around for a stable enough handhold, and hoists himself up onto the Hale house’s lower rooftop. Just barely he almost kills himself, going off-balance with a fist pump of victory, but he rights himself in time, flailing forward with a yelp. He’s pretty sure that everyone’s already heard him—either that or they’ve decided that a cat’s strayed by and decided to breakdance on their roof.

He breathes a sigh of relief, and then half-stumbles, half-crawls to one of the windows, being very careful not to make any more noise, and not to slip and accidentally snap his neck on the ground down below. _So far so good_ , he thinks, because literally nothing has gone as good as his little plan has, in all his life of being a creeper.

He peeks into the window gingerly, as if anyone who catches him would call the cops on his ass. He snickers lightly at the thought.

_Hello, officer, there’s a perv on our roof._

_Which residence is this?_

_The spooky supposedly abandoned Hale house off road fifteen._

What a conversation that would have turned out to be.

Through the window, he sees a gloomy, wallpaper-less room, looking incredibly musty and haunted. Stiles’ heart rate instinctively picks up—it’s not every day that you see a horror movie setting as close to legit as this one. It seems like, for all intents and purposes, abandoned, yet in the middle of the room is a mattress on the floor, where Stiles finds what he’s looking for. His breath catches in his throat.

Derek’s lying on his stomach, and Stiles is immediately reminded of his idiocy. The rest of Derek’s singed-off shirt has been removed, and the large burn covers most of his back, still very much gruesome and real and raw.

Stiles is flooded with guilt and disappointment. He suddenly has second thoughts about actually seeing the older man, but then again, he went through so much effort climbing over a wall that was falling apart, that not entering the room would be a waste. Plus, he doesn’t think he could go down from that height without injuries of the lethal kind happening to him, so he braves the insurmountable obstacle that is Derek’s window and jumps in.

Derek stirs, and Stiles for one thoughtless moment decides to go completely still. _Wait, no, if he’s awake, then he definitely knows it’s me._

Derek’s head slowly turns to him, face skimming against the pillow. Stiles watches with bated breath as Derek’s gaze settles on him. Some trademark Derek Frowning immediately follows.

“Uh, hi,” Stiles says, straightening himself from his skulking pose. Derek scowls.

“What are you doing here?” he says, in a tone that Stiles gauges as mildly annoyed.

Stiles scratches his head. “Uh, well … They wouldn’t let me see you. They told me you were ok, that you were healing. They’re scared, I think, that I would freak out and make things worse, which they’re probably right about. I’m ok now. I mean—no, I can’t say that because I’m not the one with roast beef for a back, but yeah, I wanted to see for myself, if you were indeed ok, so um …”

Stiles’ gaze flits quickly from Derek’s scowling expression to his injury and back to his face. Derek stares at him for a long moment and sighs.

“You came in through the window,” Derek points out. Stiles takes note of the sheer discomfort in Derek’s voice, no doubt caused by the large expanse of smoldered skin forcibly knitting itself back into shape with its superhuman werewolfy properties. 

“I figured that I could be the creeper for once,” Stiles says, shrugging, but he also realizes that Derek’s trying to distract from the issue and stares hard at Derek.

“You jumped from a tree and saved me. Like, literally put yourself between me and a fireball. And _burned for it_. Who does that?” Stiles says shakily, because he still can’t believe that Derek did what he did.

Derek says nothing, his big, bulky arms tightening around his pillow. Derek doesn’t look at him either, and finds a spot on the floor to suddenly admire.

“I could take it,” he says finally—more like forces it through his teeth. “But you can’t. You keep forgetting you could die pretty easily.”

It’s Stiles turn to go quiet, his fingers twiddling with the ends of his shirt. Yeah, he does tend to forget that he doesn’t knit back together and he’s not really strong and tough, and that he could actually be wrapped in a bloody cloth right now, being brought back to his dad’s doorstep all charred and lifeless. Derek sees this as an opportunity to continue.

“Don’t do anything stupid again,” Derek warns, surprisingly without bite. “I’ve figured out pretty early on that trying to tell you what to do is useless, but _don’t do anything stupid like that again. _Ever.”__

Stiles’ eyes widen, his gaze snapping back to Derek. Derek’s looking at him oddly, with an expression that he hasn’t seen on the werewolf before. Significantly less hard and almost … worried? Stiles doesn’t know what to make of that, but the almost pleading note at the end of the sentence makes his blood pump faster.

“I’m sorry,” he responds, feeling sincerely regretful of his actions.

“Don’t be,” Derek says, and Stiles somehow gets the idea that he’s just saying that to comfort him, but Derek? Comforting him? It’s like a bear in a tutu dancing on two legs mauling you all of a sudden: not likely to happen. But Stiles is genuinely sorry anyway.

“Look, if there’s anything I could do to make it up to you …” he says, and he’s suddenly struck with how incredibly suggestive trailing off from that sentence sounded, and he blushes for a moment because, _really? You’re thinking those thoughts now?_ But it doesn’t seem to occur to Derek, for he just stares like a caged lion, aching to pounce and cursing his inability to do anything. Stiles should really stop thinking.

“You could get out, and go home,” Derek mutters, burying his face in his pillow as a form of dismissal.

“I’m serious! Like, anything. You name it. I feel really, really bad, looking at you all injured like this. I know—you’re going to heal completely in like, a few hours and start crime fighting in the streets of Gotham again, but yeah, feel terrible. It’s scared me shitless, when you went unconscious. And _sizzled_ , Derek. Like a hot plate.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, and Stiles freezes, realizing that he’s forgotten to work his lungs in between sentences like usual. Stiles clamps his mouth shut.

“Nippon Mania,” Derek says quietly, more like grumbles into his pillow. “That new Japanese place. 7:30 on Friday.”

“…”

“…”

“… What?”

“…”

When Derek pointedly, stubbornly ignores him, Stiles goes down the stairs, deflecting everyone’s words and protestations and what have you, and just goes home as instructed. He’s completely dazed, because of the multiple variations of the phrase _‘what’s just happened?’_ repeating themselves in his head.


End file.
